Ivanchuk catches Le in final round of Capa Memorial

5/22/2011 – One round before the end the Vietnamese super talent Le Quang Liem led the field at the 46th Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba, by a full point. But he still had to face Vassily Ivanchuk. Le played a brave game with black and had (we believe) the required draw in hand. But a few small inaccuracies left the Ukranian GM three pawns up and a clear win. The two players shared first.

The 46th Capablanca Memorial took place from May 10-21, 2011, in Havana,
Cuba.

The main event, the “Elite Group”, was a strong, six-player
double round robin featuring grandmasters Vassily Ivanchuk, Leinier Dominguez
Perez, David Navara, Lazaro Bruzon, Dmitry Andreikin and Le Quang Liem.
There were also three subsidiary events: the Premier, Open A and Open
B.

The rate of play was 90 min for the first 40 moves, then 30 min for the
rest of the game, with a 30 sec increment starting from move one.

One round before the finish top Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem was in the clear
lead, a full point ahead of the field. In second place the top Ukrainian (for
decades now) Vassily Ivanchuk, who had a chance to play Le in the final round.

We need to remember that Le has been having a couple of very good years. In
February he won
the very strong Aeroflot Open in Moscow – for the second time (a year
earlier, when he did it for the first time, we had called him the
new star in the Vietnam sky). He is the only player in history to win the
Aeroflot twice. Winning this open gives you a ticket to the Dortmund Super-GM,
in which Liem (his first name) went on to take second
places in 2010, behind Ruslan Ponomariov but ahead of Kramnik, Mamedyarov
and Leko.

Le Quang Liem, serial winner of the Aeroflot Open, in February this year

The 20-year-old Liem entered the international chess arena by winning the Under-14
World Youth Chess Champion in Belford in July 2005. He played for Vietnam at
the Chess Olympiads in 2006 and 2008, and had a string of success ever since.
Here is his rating progress since he was eleven:

Well, in the final round the irresistible force encountered the immovable object,
in the shape of Vassily Ivanchuk. The Ukrainian GM has been one of the world's
for more than twenty years, ranking as high as number two on the official FIDE
Elo rating list (July 1991, July 1992, October 2007), and even briefly taking
the top spot on the unofficial live ratings (September 10–12, 2008). This
is what happened in the final round in Cuba.

Ivanchuk is three pawns ahead and can launch a devastating attack: 38.Qe5+
Kd8 39.Nd6 Qe3 40.Nb7+ Kc8 41.Qh8+ Be8 42.Qxe8+ Qxe8 43.Nd6+ Kd8 44.Nxe8 Kxe8
45.a5. Opposite coloured bishops are no life-savers when one side has
three extra pawns. Liem checks it out briefly: 45...Ke7 46.h4 Kf6 47.Kh3
Kf5 48.Bb3 h6 49.a6 and then resigns 1-0. With that
the veteran has caught the young upstart and in fact taken first place on tiebreak
points.

Vassily Ivanchuk brings home the bacon in the final round

Final standings

Le Quang Liem against Leinier Dominguez in round six (Le won in 37 moves)

After some very dangerous moments White can now force a draw with 92.Kc1 and
if 92...Kc4 93.Nc5+=. But he wants that win against the tail-ender (Bruzon had
lost all his previous games): 92.Nd4 Bd5 93.Kc1 Bc4 94.g5?? fxg5 95.f6
Bd5? 96.Nf5? (96.Kc2!) g4 97.Kc2 Bb3+ 98.Kc1 Bf7 99.Nxh6 g3
0-1. No lack of fighting spirit in Havanna.

See also

9/26/2017 – The final classical game. The finals has been relatively sedate with three draws until now. But it could all end today with one decisive game. Ding Liren has the black pieces today. It's going to be an exciting game. Games kick off at 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EST) with live commentary from Tbilisi by GMs Evgeny Miroshnichenko and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and live updates by our reporters Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

See also

7/5/2017 – This is neither prank nor clever wording: Garry Kasparov will be playing in the official St. Louis leg of the Grand Chess Tour from August 14-19, 2017. Please note that this is the Rapid and Blitz competition, just as the ones held in Paris and Levuen these last weeks, and not the classical events. However, this is not an exhibition event, and will determine the official Grand Chess Tour rankings as well as FIDE ratings of the players. Here is the press release.

Video

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